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Friday, 4 April 2014

Beat the weekday blues

Plan a run of the mill hack out around the village with a couple of friends after work

Step Two

Rush out of work excited to go for said ride, and arrive at yard, get changed, and prepare to get pony in

Step Three

Be confronted with decision between run of the mill hack around village with one friend, or small road trip out to the local spot we visited not long ago with the other...

Step Four

Apologise to friend and skip down to field to retrieve pony before loading him on to the trailer (where he waits for his friend as he knows he surely can't be going alone??) before walking all the way up the ramp

Step Five

Rush around grabbing various essential tack and equipment

Step Six

On the road! Tack up, ride out, and explore.

Step Seven

Take a route your friend hasn't done before, and encounter a ditch that must be jumped to reach the desired destination. (Yes, we jumped our first ditch! Exciting!) Duck and dive to avoid several branches, including ones that are flying at you from where friend has been through them.

Step Eight

Mix it up. Put your horse in front of your friend's who doesn't like being behind most of the time. Have a nice few minutes before a train comes past and gets him excited, causing him to headbutt your horse in the bum and your horse to pop forward in shock a few steps. Take the sensible option and go back behind.

Step Nine

Walk over a fallen tree that's almost too big to just walk over. Almost. Be pleasantly surprised when he doesn't opt to jump it.

Step Ten

Take a nice casual walk back through the woods, including tackling a short but steep hill (going down!) and feeling very pleased when he doesn't rush it. Untack, wash off the sweaty ponies, bribe pony up ramp with hay when he decides watching traffic is more interesting than loading, and head home feeling like it's the weekend! Turn out for first time with no rug because of the sweatiness... Forget that it's Friday tomorrow!